https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8BPyh_45gw What do you do when your flagship product is an outstanding hit, and it is already the very best you can do? How do you do even better? This was the dillema Ken Ball of Campfire Audio (and ALO Audio) had when coming up with his new flagship, the […]

INTRODUCTION The mid-range IEM market ($250-500) has been somewhat dominated by hybrid designs recently, where in the past it was mainly the home of the more established multi-BA based earphones. FiiO has steadily progressed their own line of hybrid and all-BA IEMs (FH1, F9, F9 Pro, FH5) over the last […]

INTRODUCTION Brainwavz seem to be on a roll just recently. Their last 3 releases (at least the ones I’ve known about) have been the B400 IEM, HM100 circumaural closed headphones, and now they have a first full sized planar headphone. The Alara is their latest release, and I have had […]

While it’s a bit late, a few people asked me what I thought were the best products of 2018. That’s a difficult choice, as I didn’t get to experience as many as I had wished, and some are still due to be reviewed. As well, I didn’t get to explore […]

INTRODUCTION When I heard about the Brainwanz HM100, the first thing I wanted to know was how closely it related to the HM5. The HM5 was a Yoga OEM clone from the CD-880, which quite a few branded headphone manufacturers used as a base for their own models. This included […]

FiiO is soon to announce their latest pair of IEMs and we have the exclusive. The FA7 features a quad of high-quality Knowles drivers per side, embedded in a 3D printed shell made from high-transparency, medical grade German resin. A variety of shells will be available, each with a nature-based […]

INTRODUCTION I mentioned recently in my review of the Earsonics ES5 that while I’ve reached my own personal end-game nirvana with Headphones (HD800S, HD630VB and Mobius) and desktop set-up (iFi iUSB, iTube and iDSD), I’ve never really settled on a single pair of IEMs. The closest I’ve got have been […]

INTRODUCTION Many of us (who are looking at using more than just our smart-phone for audio) will be looking for solutions for particular circumstances. Personally, I have a desktop set-up mainly centered around an iFi stack (iUSD, iTube, iDSD) – which powers my headphones (HD800S, HD600 + others) as well […]

Hi folks, it’s good to be back! Last time you saw us was when we toured the Audeze factory, and sat down with Sankar Thiagasamudram to discuss the development of high performance planar magnetic headphones. If you haven’t already seen it, please check it out here. We were thrilled with […]

INTRODUCTION Over time, and with the advent of the smart-phone essentially becoming our electronic PA, the ongoing trend has been continuation of a common theme. Thinner, faster, more screen space, more processing power, more storage, better apps, better camera. All of this tends to come at a cost, especially when […]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Si4Wt8ADM Almost a decade ago now I asked Kingwa (He Qinhua), the owner of Audio-gd about making a version of the headphone amp I had bought from him. He told me that you’d need to put two of them in a large box to do that. However a month later […]